[DISCUSSION] Deletions policy overhaul
04 mirror: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-17742469/discussion-deletions-policy-overhaul
Motivation
Over the years, I've noticed a few pain points and headaches with respect to deletions. I've attempted to remedy those with new versions of the mainsite and 05 Deletions Guides, which include some policy and procedure changes.
Proposed new guides and policies
Mainsite Deletions Guide draft
05 Deletions Guide draft
Current guides, for reference
Mainsite Deletions Guide
05 Deletions Guide
Notable changes
- No more timers. Deletions due to score will now be carried out more promptly. We've found that timers are counterproductive in that they encourage desperate last-minute attempts to "save" a failing article, leaving authors disappointed when those attempts fail. We want to encourage authors to take the time necessary to receive critique and revise failing articles instead of racing the clock. (They also inconvenience the Deletions Subteam.)
- JS may witness deletions with the prior approval of the Captain of the MAST Deletions subteam. This enlarges the pool of available witnesses while also allowing JS to gain experience with the deletions process.
- Explicitly allow deletion for any page that a user was not allowed to create in the first place. This replaces the rather nebulous "gaming site procedures" reason and allows for more specificity. (E.g. "witnessing for deletion as a page created by a user evading their ban.")
- The concept of summary deletion has been removed. Deletions are deletions; there are slightly different procedures depending on deletion reason, but the division of deletions into regular and summary added unnecessary complexity.
- Related to the above, any page eligible for deletion for any reason will be tagged in-deletion. This replaces the prior system where pages eligible for deletion due to score were tagged deletion-range but no tag was available for pages eligible for deletion for any other reason.
- Streamline AI/trolling deletions by counting votes to ban a user for a page's content as votes to delete those pages. The underlying thought here is that if a member of staff says that a page is AI-generated for purposes of determining whether its author should be banned, they shouldn't then need to say it again for purposes of determining whether the page should be deleted.
- Users are encouraged to delete their own failing articles.
Please don't hesitate to make suggestions related to both the policies being introduced and the wording of the guides.
Discussion will continue for one week.
Edit: Changed JS witnessing criteria based on feedback.